Want all the gains of meeting with other Christian teachers but with minimal work? This page is for you.
Teach Feasts are a wonderful way to gather teachers and trainees in your area for food, chat and prayer. And the best bit is that they take minimal effort! Read on to see how to get started.
Do This First
We're expecting that you're already keen to gather teachers. You might even know a couple nearby. And you're probably praying about this too.
Before you go any further, pray again! Ask God to help you with this, to help you to find others to meet with and to use these meetings for his glory.
First Steps to Getting Teach Feasts Going
- Write down a list of all of the Christian teachers and trainees you know in your area at the moment.
- Once you're ready to begin, make a Whatsapp group with everyone (even if it's just two or three of you) and make those founding members admins. Explain what you're thinking about, something like this,
'Hey, I've been thining that it would be really great for us Christian teachers to meet up a few times in the year to pray and chat through doing teaching for Jesus. I've found a really good resource that could make a discussion easy. What do you think?'
Decisions to Make
There's not much you need to plan but working these few things out will help you get your first Teach Feast on its way.
- When is a good date and time for you and your friends? Once a half term often works well. Some groups find a mid-week night good, about three weeks into half term (avoiding hand-ins, marking and report frenzies later on!).
Decide on a time (discussing over a meal takes around 1 1/2 hours which most people can do but you could probably start any time from 5pm).
- Where can you meet? Meeting in a home is by far most comfortable. Is there an older person in your church who might be happy to host, esepcially for teaches? Or perhaps you're happy to host. Don't worry if you're not the world's best cook.
If finding a house is tricky, you could always opt for a late-opening cafe or pub where you can get a drink and maybe a slice of cake together earlier in the evening.
- What will you eat? The student life can be a hungry one and the teaching life is certainly busy. Eating a meal together therefore often meets several needs at once.
Have a look at our recipe suggestions for easy crowd pleasers, or order pizzas and treat yourself. Or perhaps those older hosts might be really happy to cook.
- Who will lead the sessions? You might lead the first one i.e. read the questions out. But this task can always be shared out - you are all teachers after all and all you need to do is read the study beforehand.
Tell Everyone
Now it's time to go searching for teachers. Let your church, friends, and their church friends know that you're starting something. Gather people onto that Whatsapp group you made and let everyone know about the first meeting.
Don't worry if not everyone can make it - there won't be a pefect time. You might like to share the link to the first Teach Feast for others to have a look and you can always do a poll to find out when everyone's free for the meeting next half term.
If you've done most or all of the above, hooray - you will now have a Teach Feast!
Got Questions? Ask us at teaching@uccf.org.uk and we'll happily help you to get going.
We already have Teach Feasts set up in Sheffield, Nottingham, Liverpool and Oxford. Let us know if you get one going where you are - we can't wait to hear all about it!
